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The Legend of the Primrose Jane
by T.A. Saunders ©2009 v1.0 A popular tale amongst sea-faring folk is the legend of the Primrose Jane. Some two hundred years ago the Wild East was being re-settled by Humans and Elves on the land given to them in an agreement with the new Shar’Vaire government that rose from the ashes of the War of the Eternals. The land in question had not been contested territory, but the new sovereign of the Shar’Vaire people, Mourne Dur’lane felt these people were due reparation for the destruction that had leveled so many Elvish cities on Shalzaar. With so few Shar’Vaire left to occupy the land anyway, it was the ‘Prince of Vengeance’ who chose to simply grant the the land, in hopes some measure of peace would be found going forward. Indeed, the many Human and scarce few Elves that remained leapt at the offer, despite being brought so close to their former enemy’s doorstep. Ko’rashae Rivas herself was said to have negotiated a deal with the new sovereign to settle the City of Sundown, which was thought to have been part of the Windsong Accord. This accord was an agreement to unify all four planned cities as a single Human and Elvish nation. Of course, most know the accord didn’t go as planned and Sundown ended up standing alone against Tashran, Windsong and Vale. Where this legend begins, is during the big rush from colonial ships from the city of Brookshire, which was one of the few Human cities on Shalzaar that literally went unscathed during the war. In fact, Brookshire had a boom in population due to taking in so many war refugees. So when the opportunity came to settle elsewhere from the quickly overcrowded city, many took it and set sail for Tal’rah. It is also common fact that Brookshire and Sundown are considered sister cities and much of Sundown’s layout and architecture was borrowed from Brookshire. One of the many colonial ships, the Primrose Jane had set sail at the very end of this boom. A beautiful galleon, with eight sails and twenty guns, she glided across the water it was said, like a mermaid and that even the infamous Sea of Whispers could not catch her in the wind. Perhaps a mistake to say such things, for it is known that the Sea of Whispers is old water that has claimed many ships in her strange and many eons; so it would be with the Primrose Jane. It is said that things sleep in the cold deep of the Sea of Whispers, from the time when the Shar’Vaire were still loved by the Old Gods. Things that were put down in the great battle at the beginning of Time that could not be slain, even by these children of the Gods, so they were left buried where they would slumber. They poison the water it is said, giving it a hatred for life that manifests in the creatures that swim its waters and in the souls that die when ships are dragged down into its cold, unforgiving depths. All of this could be a long-standing Shar’Vaire joke to scare Humans and others, having always found amusement in taunting the child race’s superstitions but at least with the fate of the Primrose Jane, there seems to be some truth to it. The galleon had been but a few days from the settlement of Sundown, when a great storm had blown through. While it was winter time in Tal’rah, this southern tip of Tal’rah wasn’t known for cold weather; quite the opposite. Sundown was renown for its warm weather even during these cold and miserable months elsewhere. It is thought this freakish storm destroyed the Primrose Jane, though nobody knows for sure. Neither her manifest or her captain’s journal was recovered. The only survivors were those found upon a single life boat; four children that ranged from ages of thirteen to five that could not accurately describe what had happened for the terror in their hearts would not let them speak the words for what they saw. Through the stammering of the eldest, the conjecture was made that a great sea beast had been roused by the storm and took its fury upon the fated vessel. Others dismissed this as a child’s imagination playing games with her mind for the fear she had experienced and concluded the storm itself was the cause. Whatever the case, every now and then when the skies darken as they once did and cold weather blows in strangely from the south, as it ever should not, the people of Sundown call it Jane’s Storm, to remember the doom of the lost Primrose Jane. When such storms come to pass, one will be hard pressed indeed to set sail across the waters of the Sea of Whispers from Sundown’s ports.